


Getting Away

by Liara_90



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Fishing, Gen, Grif's Lessons on Being Lazy, Not Shippy, One Shot, POV Female Character, POV Third Person, Reflection, Season/Series 15 Spoilers, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, Writing Exercise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-14 11:42:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13589334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liara_90/pseuds/Liara_90
Summary: Carolina runs into Grif during an early-morning jog. At least one of them sucks at fishing.A reflective moment between these two characters. Set during the events shown in the Season 15 episode: “Previously On”.





	Getting Away

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be a little drabble exploring an interaction between Carolina and Grif. But I can’t write less than 2,000 words to save my life.

* * *

Carolina’s eyes flitted open, darting to the liquid crystal display of her alarm clock well before the first thoughts of the day had even entered her mind. _05:56_ , the crimson red lights informed her, the last digit ticking upwards to _7_ as she read it.

She let out a muffled groan and buried her head back in her pillow, blanket still wrapped tightly around her body. Her bed - actually a couple of gym mats that had been spared from Donut’s well-lubricated inferno - never felt more comfortable than in these moments, when she was awake but not quite conscious.

She closed her eyes, hoping to catch a few more minutes of rest, but it was pointless, and she knew it. Her body was already awakening itself for the day, circadian rhythms conspiring to keep her from oversleeping. Her mind was already on the alarm, knowing that it would go off in a matter of minutes, knowing she was going to-

_Beep, be-_

Carolina reached out and slapped the little machine, a second after it began buzzing. There was supposedly a snooze button on it somewhere, but she’d never actually hit it. _Couldn’t_ actually hit it, would probably have been more accurate.

On the other side of the room, Wash let out a muted moan, rolling over and away from the noise. They’d once had separate bunks - separate _rooms_ \- in the complex that Kimball had sprung for them. The privacy had been nice, but there was also something comfortable about sleeping in close-quarters, a sense of safety, courtesy of a few million years of evolution. They’d ended up sleeping together (not _that_ way) after Donut had unintentionally downsized their living quarters, even if they probably could’ve still arranged rooms of their own.

Carolina felt distantly guilty about subjecting Wash to her early-morning wake-up calls, but he’d fall back into obliviousness in no time at all. The guy slept like a brick.

She slipped out of her blankets, taking a few seconds to adjust to the cool air of an early morning. From there it was a matter of collecting a few garments from her side of the shelf, slipping into a pair of track pants and a hoodie, zipped up against the morning cool. She snuck out of the room as quietly as she could, letting in a sliver of light from the hallway outside, but the rhythm of Wash’s breathing testified to his tranquility.

_6:03 AM_

The building was quiet now, so empty that it sometimes seemed haunted. The Blues were all pretty heavy sleepers - well, except Caboose, he really marched to his own, entirely-unpredictable drummer - which was fine with Carolina, because they had only one working washroom between them.

Teeth brushed and face washed, Carolina made her way out of the improvised dorm building, and into a small utilities shed adjacent to the complex. It wasn’t much to look at - just a bunch of circuit breakers and electrical meters - but it was where she’d stored her armor these past few weeks. She’d been half-tempted to leave it on her bedroom shelves, but this shed was directly connected to their camp’s transformer station, which meant she could charge her suit’s battery _way_ faster than the 120 Volt capacity of a wall socket.

The door creaked shut behind her, Carolina flipping a small switch to power on the room’s one bulb. Her armor was right where she’d left it, neatly stacked on a workbench, with just a few specs of dust settling on its cyan shell. Dropping herself on a stool, Carolina tapped at the keyboard of a PDA, the pint-sized computer directly wired to the suit’s helmet.

_> Initializing armor wake-up sequence…._

_> Checking for artificial intelligence unit…._

_> Checking…. _

_> No artificial intelligence unit detected... _

_> Beginning self-diagnosis…._

_> Battery is at 100%..._

_> Primarily life support systems are…. Functional…_

_> Auxiliary life support systems are…. Functional... _

_> Cybernetic interface systems are… Functional... _

Carolina set the PDA down, letting the little machine work its test in peace. Nothing would be wrong, she already knew. MJOLNIR armor was notoriously reliable, and hers had done little more than gather dust since Chorus. Not exactly a lot of call for an ex-Freelancer supersoldier these days, but she ran the checks weekly, just in case.

She caught her reflection in the Scout helmet’s visor.

_> Thrust systems are… Functional…_

_> Optical sensor systems are… Functional... _

_> Auditory sensor systems are… Functional…_

_> Seismic sensor systems are… Functional…_

Carolina grabbed the helmet, careful not to jostle the cable from its jack. Curling her fingers around her sleeve, she wiped a strand of a spider’s web from the corner of her visor. She made a note to bring a cloth and a bucket next time. Just because the systems were still functional didn’t mean she had to let it get dusty. ‘ _Take care of your equipment, and it will take care of you_ ,’ or so her first Marine instructor had drilled into her skull.

Not that she was a Marine anymore. Or even a soldier of any sort. Just another vet who had a few extra souvenirs from the Great War.

She set the helmet back down on the workbench, watching as the diagnostic computer churned out line after line of unremarkable results. Normally she sat through the whole thing, needing to see with her own eyes the data as they came in. But apparently not today…

She slipped out of the shed, gently shutting the door behind her, before setting her sights on the horizon. The sun was still low in the sky, cooler and more distant than Sol was from Earth, and their present latitude was well north of the moon’s equator. Her Basic camp had been a lot like this, cool and mild all-year-round, albeit with a lot more signs of civilization. Their current home didn’t even have a name, unless one counted the alphanumeric gibberish that had been assigned to the moon generations ago. The Reds and Blues had failed to come to a consensus on a proper name (surprisingly literally no one), torn between endless variations of ‘Tuckertown’ or ‘Redmerica’ or ‘Malarkeyopolis’.

Neither Carolina nor Washington had bothered participating in the bickering. They knew that you could always just pick a new name, later.

Tugging at the drawstrings of her hoodie, Carolina bounced on her feet for a few seconds, and then took off at a jog, running along the craggy shoreline. The terrain was far from the track surfaces she’d been used to, too uneven to work up a full-sprint, but that wasn’t bad practice for a warrior. Just a bit harder on the legs.

She planned for a quick circuit around the unofficial perimeter of their campsite. Just enough to work up a sweat, get her heart and her lungs pumping for the day. Make sure none of the utility substations were on fire or falling apart. Back to base in time for a quick shower and breakfast. Tucker was supposed to be making pancakes this morning, and damned if she was going to let Wash steal her stack.

She’d barely been running for ten minutes before something unusual caught her eye. Some sign of habitation that hadn’t been there before. Her adrenal gland pumped out a few epinephrine hormones, even as she knew it was just as likely to be another one of Sarge’s hare-brained schemes. But you could never be too sure. She slowed her jog by degrees, one hand drifting to the waistband where her gun holster _would have_ been-

_Whoa, steady girl…_

Carolina almost tripped, her internal monologue catching her by surprise. Because she’d heard it in Epsilon’s voice. Not for the first time, and almost-certainly not for the last. She was so used to having his voice in her head that he could sometimes narrate her thoughts. Even now.

She slowed as she approached the anomaly, which she quickly recognized as a tent of some sort, assembled right at the edge of the high-tide line. One of the civilian kits Kimball had sent them off with, self-assembling and lightweight. Carolina had to steady herself as she traversed the slippery shoreline, wet sand sinking underfoot. The front of the tent was open, unzipped, revealing a long, fold-out chair, a bundle of blankets, and a cooler.

And one occupant.

“Grif?” Carolina asked, her fists unclenching as she recognized the tent’s inhabitant.

Dexter Grif, swaddled to the chest in outdoor blankets, nudged the brim of the cap he’d been shading his eyes with. It was something touristy, from the gift shop of the USS _Missouri_ , the colors long-since faded. “Hm? Oh, morning, Carolina.” He tucked the brim back down, folding his hands over his chest.

“You’re up early,” Carolina observed, steadying her breaths enough to speak clearly. She saw now that a fishing line was resting in the sand beside Grif, its line stretched into the clear-blue waters beyond. “Early bird gets the fish?”

Grif flashed a small smile. “Nah. Just fell asleep here last night,” he explained, shuffling slightly on the chair. “Felt like I could use some hard-earned R&R.”

“Oh really?” Carolina asked, a little sarcastically, resting her hands on her hips. “Needed to get away from all the _siestas_ and second breakfasts?”

“ _Hey_.” Grif’s tone took on a note of annoyance. “I might be doing _nothing_ , but I’m doing _nothing_ with _them_. Do you have any idea how _exhausting_ that kind of _nothing_ can be?”

Carolina had to concede the point, if only in her head. Years ago - _decades_ ago - when she’d still been an Earthbound army brat, she’d spent a summer as a camp counselor, supervising pre-teens in the Guadalupe Mountains of West Texas. And yeah, managing that many kids with that much time on their hands had been a never-ending struggle.

Not unlike her current situation.

“So… how’s the nothing going?”

Grif flicked his cap up, recognizing that Carolina wasn’t going to be going away anytime soon. “It was going _great_ , up until about sixty seconds ago. Ya probably scared all the fish away, now.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were fishing,” Carolina replied, not particularly earnestly. “I thought you were just doing nothing.”

Carolina grinned a little at that, satisfied at having caught Grif in a lie, but his scowl suggested otherwise. “Lady, you don’t really know how fishing works, do you?”

Carolina’s brow actually furrowed at that, acutely aware that there was more than a glib insult to Grif’s words. “What’s to know?” she asked, a little defensively. Her arms folded across her chest. “Cast a line, try to catch the biggest or the heaviest fish. Catch something big enough you get it mounted on a wall.”

Off in the distance, Grif’s bobber sunk beneath the surface of the waves. It returned to its state of natural buoyancy far before Grif made any move to reel in the line.

“Ah well,” Grif said to the elusive fish, sinking back into his chair. “You get to get away, fish-man.”

Carolina rolled her eyes. “You’re not very good at this whole ‘fishing’ thing, are you?”

“ _Hey_! I didn’t come over to _your_ quiet spot, wake you up, and tell you how bad you are at helping a psycho military program fuck everything up across half the galaxy.” Grif was genuinely sullen now, an ugly expression that usually accompanied being belittled by Sarge or missing the last pudding cup at dinner.

Carolina winced. “I’m sorry, Grif,” she said, this time quite genuinely meaning it. He was right, of course. “I’ve never actually been fishing. I’m sure you’re great at it.”

“Damn fucking straight I am,” Grif mouthed back, still sulking. They remained in silence for a few long seconds, before Grif let out a loud sigh. “ _Fishing_ I’m great at. It’s the _catchin’_ part I have problems with.” That earned him a smile, one of the rare ones from the ex-Freelancer. Carolina sat herself down on the edge of Grif’s chair, careful not to crush his cocooned feet with her body. “What was that about never going fishing?”

“Just what it sounds like,” Carolina said with a shrug. “Dad wasn’t much for _outdoors_ activities, and my mother…”

“...wasn’t around a lot. Yeah, I get that.” Grif’s hands were folded atop his chest again. “I used to do it with Kai a lot, out by Kauaʻi, when we were kids. Before she had better things _and-or_ _people_ to do.”

“She sounds like quite the character,” Carolina offered, a little cautiously. She didn’t exactly have the right to go probing Grif’s personal life.

“Oh, she is. Goddam elemental force of nature, I tell ya.”

Carolina picked up the handle of the fishing rod, some super-lightweight carbon fiber composite that weighed next-to-nothing in her hands. “Think you could teach me, O Great Fishing Sensei?”

Grif smirked. “ _Finally_ , the respect and appreciation I deserve.” He waved vaguely with his hand. “Go for it. There’s some leftovers from Tucker’s jerk fest that I’ve been using as bait,” he explained, gesturing to a small bag by his chair.

Carolina spent the next few minutes figuring out how to reel the line back in, hook the bait, and cast the line back out into the shallow waters. She’d seen it done on TV enough times to have a pretty fair understanding of the process, and it wasn’t like Grif had a bunch of complicated accessories or anything. The bait itself had been barely fit for human consumption when it’d been served last week, she doubted Grif was going to be snaring too many-

-that probably wasn’t the point, was it?

The bobber hit the water with a distant _plop_.

“Alright, I’m ready to learn how to fish,” Carolina stated, the handle held tightly in her hands.

“You are doing well, my Padawan,” Grif replied in a sagely tone, even as his eyes drifted shut. “Continue as you were. I must first observe your technique.” The brim of his cap was now fully over his eyes, blocking out the light of the sunrise.

Carolina stared out into the water, the rod held equidistance between her knees. The line was slack, the bobber serene. Off in the distance, some waterfowl began honking a noisy mating ritual. Grif began to snore. Her grip on the rod’s handle loosened by degrees. Carolina’s head was empty.

On an unnamed moon orbiting a forgotten planet, she started to fish.

**Author's Note:**

> Full disclosure - I have no idea how fishing actually works.
> 
> So yeah. Little more practice with _RvB_. I hope to write more ambitious stuff in the future, but I need to get a better handle on the characters first. The Sim Troopers are so much harder to write than the Freelancers, _and_ I have to remember that Grif ≠ Geoff Ramsey. If you have any feedback – pacing, characterization, tone, etc. – feel free to leave a comment letting me know. Also feel free to hit me up on [Tumblr](http://www.pvoberstein.tumblr.com/) or [reddit](https://www.reddit.com/user/pvoberstein/).
> 
> One day I’ll figure out how to trim stuff down. But it is not this day.


End file.
